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Monday, October 31, 2016

Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist and activist, has written a new book,
“Weapons of Math Destruction.” She is concerned about the proliferation
of certain kinds of algorithms – that help make important decisions, but
that could be based on unfair statistics with hidden biases. She
explains how to look out for them, and what we can do to protect
ourselves.

Sunday, February 07, 2016

@lucykellaway complains about the boneheaded aphorisms from Davos’s windy summit. Among other things, she critiques the advice given by Meg Whitman of HP — “You can always go faster than you think you can” — and
points out that no, you can’t. Sometimes, when you go faster you fall
flat on your face.

I hate to say this, but Lucy Kellaway is not entirely correct here. Or at least her counter-example doesn't prove her point. When you fall flat on your face, you ARE going faster than you thought you could. Just not quite in the direction you wanted.

But that's not to let Meg Whitman off the hook. Her quote has been widely disseminated as a leadership lesson. Framed thus, it appears to encourage people to ALWAYS go faster than they thought they could, and to imply that going faster than you thought you could is ALWAYS a good thing.

The plot thickens. The Financial Times receives an email from Henry "MagicGus" Gomez, head of marketing and communications at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, alleging biased reporting on Ms Kellaway's part, and warning FT management to consider the impact of unacceptable biases on its relationships with advertisers.

Fortunately, FT management is made of sterner stuff.

My reply to HP, which threatened to cut ads in FT after reading my col. I love the FT for letting me write this. https://t.co/m4oBFxzHFn